There is growing concern that the sustainability of the prawn fishery in the Shark Bay World Heritage area of Western Australia may be at risk due to a higher proportion of small prawns in commercial catches and fishery-independent recruitment surveys. The causes of change in prawn size and the magnitude of recruitment remain unknown.

In response to this, the current project will adopt a multi-disciplinary approach to:

1. understand the impact of environmental parameters on the biology and distribution patterns of western king and brown tiger prawns;
   2. understand the relative contribution of autumn and spring spawning stock to recruitment and subsequent catch and prawn size composition;
   3. determine if predictive models of prawn carrying capacity can be based on information on ecological processes and primary productivity; and
   4. develop prawn size related performance indicators for the Shark Bay Prawn Harvest Strategy.